


Great Power

by crikey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Gen, angst? probably, another day another professors being sad fic here on ao3/users/crikey, anyway., canon compliance, im such a sucker for professorfic guys, there's no graphic depiction of violence but it's alluded to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27068785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crikey/pseuds/crikey
Summary: On the first evening of his tenure as Hogwarts Headmaster, Severus Snape stands on Albus’s balcony looking out at the grounds.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Severus Snape
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Great Power

On the first evening of his tenure as Hogwarts Headmaster, Severus Snape stands on Albus’s balcony looking out at the grounds. Funny, that Albus Dumbledore is two months dead, and by Severus’s hand, and yet this balcony, this office, this tower (this school) remains Albus’s in his mind. Even now Severus isn’t rid of him -- he can see, distantly, the marble tomb, white in the moonlight. 

He turns and sweeps inside, settles at Albus’s desk, his fingers steepled in front of him. At thirty-seven years old he is a shabby imitation of a headmaster, at best -- he looks apathetically at the portraits that line the wall, and most of them stare balefully back. Only Phineas Nigellus offers a nod. Even the youngest of these witches and wizards has at least ten years on Severus. 

But Severus has something none of them have, he thinks grimly; he rubs his hand over his forearm. Under the sleeve, he knows his Dark Mark stands out as starkly against his pale skin as it had on the night he’d skived off the Dark Lord’s resurrection. 

Earlier, Amycus and Alecto had come by to discuss their classes again; in a fit of impatience, Severus had sent them away.  _ Neither of you are so ill-prepared that you’d need my help on the first night of term. _ Now, surrounded by these portraits, he is considering whether it was the right choice. In taking the helm at Hogwarts he’s meant to protect it. But whatever the Carrow siblings have planned for tomorrow will be as dangerous to challenge as to allow -- and for now, Severus Snape is erring on the side of caution. He may be meant to protect the school, but he has to protect himself first. 

Out of curiosity, Severus had looked at the last memory Albus had consulted, where it was still swirling loosely in the Pensieve. It’d been a night in the early nineties, with Harry Potter in his pyjamas staring into the Mirror of Erised. 

That boy truly had marched around the castle like he owned it. No longer, thought Severus -- wherever Potter was, it was finally, finally out of his hands. 

* * *

He cannot help some vindictive pleasure in the guilty way that Longbottom gulps when Severus turns to face the three miscreants, seated before his desk. He is too bored to be effectively furious, but it is satisfying to see that Longbottom is as afraid of his coldness as he’d ever been of his anger. 

These are the Carrows’ first victims, Severus thinks wryly, or they would have been, had he not been the first to catch them. The Sword of Gryffindor sits on his desk, innocuous without its glass casing. Severus is always surprised at how much smaller it is than he expects.

He says, “Do you care to explain yourselves?”

“That doesn’t belong to you,” says Weasley immediately. “Dumbledore left it to Harry in --”

“It didn’t belong to Dumbledore, either,” says Severus. “That doesn’t explain why you felt the need to break into my office. I assume none of you know where Potter is.”

“We don’t,” says Longbottom hurriedly. “We just wanted to keep it safe.”

“Well, rest assured, Longbottom,” says Severus coldly -- again the boy quails under his look, though Severus can tell he’s trying hard to keep his composure -- “that it will be kept under much closer watch from now on. The Ministry has arranged for it to be safeguarded at Gringotts Wizarding Bank for the duration of the school year.” 

There is a pause. Weasley looks to be gearing up to retort but a look from Lovegood stops her. Severus says, “All three of you will serve detention tomorrow night. I’ll have Professor Hagrid collect you.” He waits for a reaction; receiving none, he adds, “You are dismissed.” A flick of his wand allows the three students to stand from their chairs; Weasley, rubbing her wrists and glaring darkly, turns on her heel and storms away, closely followed by the other two.

The door shuts behind them and Albus says, immediately, “They’re remarkably clever, if they thought to retrieve the sword for Harry.”

“They’ve painted a target on themselves,” says Severus, sitting behind his desk; he does not afford Albus’s portrait a glance. “The Carrows will treat them as a threat.”

“The Carrows would be fools to underestimate them,” says Albus.

* * *

The voice is unmistakable, even though it shakes: “You sicken me.”

“I didn’t invite you, Filius,” says Severus, not turning around. 

“We’ve barely started spring term.” Filius hasn’t come in -- his voice is still coming from the doorway, pitching louder with anger. “And you stood by while those -- brutes --” his voice breaks off. Filius at his least articulate terrifies Severus -- now he turns, the hem of his cloak whispering along the rug when he does. Gently, deliberately, he flattens his palms against his desk. 

“What are you doing here, Filius? Don’t you have a student to tend to?”

Filius looks almost ashamed at that. “Poppy’s taking care of him,” he says; a flash of bitter malice crosses his face and he adds, “Though what help any of us have been, I can’t say. They did their job well.”

Severus matches his stare, ruthless. (Like a good Death Eater, he thinks.) It must have been quite the blow to Filius, to admit he was out of his depth. “This won’t do him any good,” he says; he lets his tone take on a note of warning. “And you would do well not to question the Carrows.”

“My goodness,” says Filius, disgusted -- his voice cracks. “He’s eighteen years old.”

“Alecto has assured me that appropriate measures were taken,” Severus intones. 

“You know what he did,” says Filius. “Was it worth this?”

Severus can’t answer him. The morning’s display wasn’t just a punishment for rescuing that first year, it was a punishment for everything else the Carrows hadn’t found a culprit to, a punishment for everything else that the school had gotten away with all year. In a way, it was vengeance, not punishment. Of course it was undeserved. Finally Severus breaks eye contact, looks down at his desk.

“I don’t know which I believe,” says Filius, “that you’re unable to control them, or that you aren’t. I don’t know which I’d rather believe.”

“Leave my office, Filius,” says Severus. He looks back up, across the room at Filius, who still stands in the doorway, with his hat clenched in his hand and his wand out. Filius is silent, so Severus adds, “I’ll tell the Carrows not to let this happen again. You’d best be on your way back to the Hospital Wing. And tell Corner he’s lucky he wasn’t expelled.”

At that, his old friend laughs, so pained that a chill goes down Severus’s spine. At this point, expulsion would mean prison; he wonders if Filius knows that. He wonders which Filius thinks is preferable.

Michael Corner must be suffering terribly; Severus has never seen Filius in such anguish.

He says, “Leave me.” 

Filius must have nothing else to say; the door clicks closed.

* * *

When Severus returns to his office, he is sweating and ashen. He is tortured and angry and, worst of all, he knows bitterly that he has no right to complain. Not when, tonight, half of Gryffindor will feel the same curse in detention.

The portraits stir uneasily as he sits down; a few of them murmur to each other. Dilys Derwent asks, “What’s happened?”

“Severus?” says Albus, when Severus doesn’t reply. 

“I have nothing to say to you, Albus,” says Severus, his voice low. 

“I’ll answer,” says Phineas Nigellus. “The Dark Lord was none too happy to hear of Longbottom’s escape.”

“Longbottom’s escaped, then?” says Armando Dippet anxiously.

“Yes,” says Severus, “Thanks to his foolhardy friends.” The Carrows had tasted the Dark Lord’s displeasure too, tonight; Severus doesn’t envy his students their punishments, even though he suspects that tonight will only serve to radicalise them further. His pity for the students of Hogwarts has been more and more tainted, as the year wears on, with a horrified admiration. 

“Is that what you told your master?” says Dilys Derwent.

“It’s what Alecto told him,” says Severus; he curls his lip. It isn’t the first failing that the Carrows have blamed on their young charges, and it won’t be the last that ends with students hurt. Ten days have passed since the debacle with Michael Corner and nobody yet has recovered from it.

“What did you tell him?” says Albus.

“I told him what I always tell him,” says Severus bitterly. “That Hogwarts is still, in many ways, Albus Dumbledore’s school.”

Albus doesn’t respond for a moment; the office is still and silent but for the soft snuffling of one of the other headmasters. “That’s what you always tell him?”

“Yes,” snaps Severus. “A coward’s excuse, framing it on a dead old man, you don’t need to tell me so.”

“I was going to say,” says Albus, “that I’m flattered.”

* * *

“What’s he need someone in Ravenclaw for, anyway?” says Alecto. “Potter was a Gryffindor.” She says it with a sneer.

Severus knows Alecto is mostly protesting because she has grown to hate Ravenclaws; all year she has been frustrated by their attitude, by their underhanded mutinies and their unspoken insubordination. The last time she’d searched their dorms she’d been humiliated -- the Ravenclaws, of course, had been punished for it, but a Death Eater’s pride is not easily won back. 

“It is not your place to question the Dark Lord,” says Severus. “I’ll have Amycus guard the Gryffindor tower, as a precaution. Leave my office now -- you’ve lost enough time already.”

Alecto scowls but storms away; when the door shuts, Severus turns his head to the side and finds Albus with one eye open cautiously. 

“We’re alone, Albus.”

“So he’s coming,” says Albus, abandoning the pretense of sleep. Around him some of the other Headmasters are sitting up as well.

“He is,” says Severus. 

“And Harry?”

“I don’t know,” says Severus; he glances toward Phineas Nigellus. “The dark lord thinks so.” 

The question is answered a moment later -- there is a distant wailing sound. Someone has set off the Caterwauling Charm in the village. Severus tilts his head in concession and Albus smiles. 

“It may just be your brother on three pints of Ogden’s,” Severus warns Albus. 

“I doubt it very much,” says Albus, a hint of almost youthful glee glinting in his eyes. Severus is almost wistful looking at him.

He rubs at his Dark Mark through his sleeve; it was a quiet day, at Hogwarts. Only Terry Boot’s torture had been of any significance -- the rest of it, the quiet unease of the students and the bitter sedition of the professors, is old hat now. Potter’s friends and supporters have been lying low since Neville Longbottom disappeared. 

“Am I to go out and search for him, then?” he says, “Or am I to trust that Potter will let me know when he’s here?”

“You know the answer to that as well as I,” says Albus; Severus smiles bitterly. 

“I suppose I do,” he says, and settles into his chair to await.

**Author's Note:**

> it'sa me! i know it's been a while (quite a while) and i know i have to stop writing fics about the naturally dysfunctional nature of death eating however i cannot help myself. 
> 
> important, this is not a snape stan account, i simply cannot not find snape a fascinating and horribly truthful character. i see your 'regulus black was the real good slytherin' and i raise you that regulus black is unfortunately nowhere near this iconic.


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